The invention concerns a method, a device system and a computer program system for the maintenance of a printing or copying system.
In particular, of interest are those printing or copying systems that comprise at least two system computers, namely a central device control computer that activates a plurality of aggregates and a raster processor computer, connected with the device control computer, that comprises a print data network connection for incoming print or copy data to be raster scanned.
Such a printing or copying system is, for example, specified in WO 98/49606 A1. A raster processor for such an electrophotographic printer is, for example, known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,434.
The individual computers of such device systems comprising a plurality of system computers do not always comprise input and output devices such as keyboards, display screens, etc. For maintenance of such systems, it is therefore as a rule necessary to dock to the system or to an individual system computer with a maintenance computer specially arranged for it. However, the problem thereby sometimes exists that the computer to undergo maintenance already exhibits a fault in its basic functions, and thus the accessibility to the system is hampered or entirely impossible. In computer systems whose operating system files are stored on a hard drive, the problem sometimes occurs that the hard drive is defective, and thus not even the fundamental operating system functions are available. In this situation, the computer today must for the most part be newly booted via a system diskette or a system CD-ROM, i.e. must be loaded with the operating system data.
In the publication “Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) Specification” by the Intel Corporation, Vers. 2.1 (Sep. 20, 1999), typical system structures and events are specified in connection with the booting of a computer.
The document with the title “THE TFTP PROTOCOL (REVISION 2) compiled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the Network Working Group, and edited by K. Sollins in July 1992. It bears the document numbers Request for Comments (RFC) Nr. 1350, as well as the identifiers STD 33, Obsoletes RFC 783. Technical details of the TFT [sic] protocol established in Internet systems are specified in this document.
The document with the title “Clarifications and Extensions for the Bootstrap Protocol”, compiled by Carnegie Mellon University for the Network Working Group and edited by M. Wimer in October 1993. It bears the document numbers Request For Comment (RFC) Nr. 1542 as well as the identifiers Updates 951 and Obsoletes 1532. Technical details of the bootstrap protocol established in Internet systems are specified in this document.
The publications cited above, as well as other publicly available specifications cited in the following specification, such as the documents RFC Nr. 1918 and RFC Nr. 1597, are hereby included in the present specification by reference.